


21st Night of September

by ToAStranger



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Gen, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Doctor Strange (2016), Post-Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 11:39:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10943754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToAStranger/pseuds/ToAStranger
Summary: Do you remember the 21st night of September?Love was changing the minds of pretenders while chasing the clouds away.





	21st Night of September

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Вечером 21 сентября](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11803275) by [escuadrilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/escuadrilla/pseuds/escuadrilla)



> Now with the added bonus of a playlist with all the music mentioned, in order of appearance: 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMMc4yy-iKSH9djdYJHZZTvcMWiBTwXAN

Tony is eight years old when he hears it the first time, sitting on the floor of his mom’s closet, beaming up at her as she sways around and sings along-- holding up dresses for his approval.  It’s funny because it’s the middle of July, but his mom looks too happy, her hair a mess of dark curls as she sways along with the jazzy upbeat R&B tune.  

They’re interrupted when Jarvis steps in, mouth quirked in amusement, a tray of water and glasses in hand.  “Forgive the interruption, ma’am.”

“Nonsense, J!” Maria smiles and holds out a hand to him.

He scrambles to set the tray aside on one of the small, fringe ottomans in the vast closet as she pulls him in between the racks, swaying with him, head falling back as he pushes her into an awkward twirl.  Jarvis laughs despite himself, eyes bright and graying at the temples.  Tony laughs too.

“What would my wife say, Mrs. Stark?” Jarvis smiles.

“That I need to keep my whiley hands to myself, Jarvis.” Maria smacks a kiss to Jarvis’ cheek and twirls away, still bouncing on the toes of her feet as she makes her way over to where Tony is clutching a pair of her shoes in his lap.  “Come here, mijo.”

Tony pushes to his feet; he barely reaches her hip, but she takes his hand and starts spinning him around in time with the song.  He ends up standing on the tops of her feet, her hands in his, as she rocks him back and forth, mouthing the words down at him.

“ _As we danced in the night_ ,” she smiles, all delight and bright eyes.  “ _Remember how the stars stole the night away_.”

* * *

When his parents die in a car crash, Tony gets blind drunk and hacks into one of the SI satellites he knows is orbiting somewhere out of atmo and wires an old boombox of Rhodey’s to it and streams out an endless loop of classics and not-so-classic classics as he clutches to Dum-E’s extended strut.  When the first beats of Earth, Wind & Fire start playing, he closes his eyes and smiles.

He shut it down the next day.

* * *

The thing about Tony’s taste in music is that it has always had a wide range.  He grew up with a mother who loved classical pieces as much as she loved the blues and jazz.  His father had a more limited musical palate, when he wasn’t working in complete silence, and it tended to stick to more big band sounds that reminded him of older times.  He’d always been very loud, and very disparaging of Tony’s decision to blast rock’n roll in his room as loud as he could, though Tony remembers some very rare, very fond moments when Howard would smile and roll his eyes whenever he spotted whatever new vinyl Tony had brought home with him after the long months away at prep school.

By the time Tony got to MIT, he already had amassed an incredibly stupid collection-- the worn Bing Crosby records lining up right next to Led Zeppelin-- and it only grew from there.

Tony has mood music.  Certain things he listens to when he needs to get other things done.  AC/DC and Black Sabbath and Aerosmith when he’s sciencing the _shit_ out of something.  Dulcet croons of Freddie and Louis when he’s drowning in paperwork.  Pop when the mood-- or the liquor-- strikes him hard enough.  

 _Africa_ by Toto and _Hot Blooded_ by Foreigner are his go-to shitfaced jams.  

He’s gotten high on more things than he cares to think about in his life-- what can he say? He was a product of the 80s.  But these days he restricts it to an occasional hit on a blunt, and Marvin Gaye is always what he grooves to.

But R&B-- the Commodores, George Benson, the Temptations-- are the artists he’s mourned to since 1991.

* * *

It is days after Steve sent him a letter and a flip phone.  He’s sitting with Rhodey and Vision, staring up at the endless sea of stars above the Compound, a bottle passed between him and Rhodes but not Vision, when he remembers that stupid little satellite player and wonders what songs is playing in between the vast spaces of black right now while FRIDAY pipes some indie rock bullshit overhead that Vision likes.

He laughs at the thought and Rhodey lifts a brow.  “Just thinking.  About space.  You think aliens have a favorite Spice Girl?”

Rhodey groans.

* * *

In the aftermath of Civil War, Tony throws himself at other projects when he isn’t busy with UN delegations and touring the world, the shiny star of the Accords.  Pepper is shockingly pleased-- and probably a bit worried-- with the amount of tech R&D start pushing out.  They’ll be set for the next three years and then some, at the rate he’s going, so she gently chides him away from it.

So Tony works on more overarching projects.  Works with the UN on globalizing green energy.  Contacts Gates about cheaper way to make vaccines.  Then, when Rhodey puts him in contact with a woman at NASA named Carol, he starts pushing funding toward some of their space expeditions.

“What about a communicator?” Tony asks her one day, spinning in his chair, the unamused purse of her lips belied only by the bright look of her eyes as she watches him over the video projection.  “Like, we sent out a floaty time capsule and we’ve got some long distance boomers up there, but what about something better?  Bigger?  To catch someone’s attention?”

He’s gotta fill his time somehow.  

Carol tilts her head, considering what it is that he’s offering, and smiles.  “What did you have in mind?”

Overhead, the faint strum of guitar makes a wickedly delighted grin spread over his face.  

* * *

Tony doesn’t expect a lot of things these days.  

Or, rather, Tony tries not to expect a lot of things these days.  He’s positive that it’s just sheer dumb luck that things have been working so well since Siberia, that his small team of three has grown marginally bigger over the last six months, Peter and Bruce and Thor and Stephen joining in with the merry band of miserable fuckers that come and go at the Compound like it’s a damn motel.  

Though, admittedly, they all make the place considerably less miserable.  And Tony doesn’t miss the way Rhodey keeps hinting that Carol might be making a “transfer” soon, nor does he miss the way Peter keeps hinting about some heroes he may or may not have encountered in the underbelly of New York on some of his vigilante webbing sprees.  

He just doesn’t expect anything to come of it.  Of much of anything he’s been putting effort into.  Refuses to.  He doesn’t need to get results to know that things are, surprisingly, working out well.

So when he’s working on Peter’s goggles late one night, the faint alert that pops up in front of his face is a minor shock, as is FRIDAY’s soft: “It appears you’ve an update on the SSIMS, boss.”

“Oh.”

The Soul Sounds Intergalactic Music System had started transmitting at multiple frequencies two months previous, piggybacking off of one of SI’s most powerful satellites with full approval for maintenance and upgrades-- as needed-- from NASA’s astronauts up at the space station.  Since then, it has not only been keeping the space station entertained, but it’s been shelling out music to the farthest reaches of the galaxy and beyond.  

Tony really hadn’t expected anything to come of it.  Like, _really_ hadn’t.

“Pull it up, sweetheart.”

She does.

“Oh,” Tony blinks.  “ _Oh_.”

“Yes, I believe you’ve said that twice already, sir.”

“We--” Tony frowns down at the sight of a soundwave that had not be transmitted by his own device, but something that had _bounced back_ from somewhere out in the deep.  “We got a reply?”

“As it turns out, boss, music might just be a universal language.  Would you like me to play it?”

“Where’s it originate from?”

FRIDAY goes quiet for a moment, then returns with an estimate, and Tony nearly chokes on his own tongue.  

“That’s-- FRI, that’s really not--”

“Would you like me to play it, sir?”

“Please.”

The first notes are garbled, static and messy, not even really sound at all.  Then, it pitches so high that Tony has to cover his ears for a moment.

It’s only when it settles, the first lyrics belt out of Tony’s speakers, and Tony falls out of his chair laughing as _Hooked on a Feeling_ starts playing through his lab.

* * *

He’s down in Florida by the next day, a pair of purple sunglasses in place as he breezes through, heading straight for Carol’s office.  She greets him with a surprised blink and a smile, before demanding to know what the hell he’s doing there.

“I’ve got a phone call to make,” he points upwards with a finger.

She escorts him all the way down to the servers they set aside for Tony’s pet project, watching as he messes around with the wires and hooks his phone into the main system while the engineers fret off to the side.  Arms crossed, she frowns down at him and arches a brow when he starts scrolling through a playlist.

“What are you gonna play?”

Tony grins, all teeth, and selects something in the middle.  The first riff of guitar starts up and Carol blinks at him again before her chin falls to her chest, her laugh lost to the steady thrum of _Space Cowboy_.

* * *

It takes an entire week and a half for any kind of response, but Tony knows that light travels faster than sound, even in space, so he’s not all that surprised.  When it does come, he’s wondrously delighted by the harmony of The Mamas & The Papas.

“FRIDAY?”

“Yes, boss?”

“How about we dust off the new place in Malibu?  I think I might have some visitors heading my way.”

* * *

Rhodey does not think it’s a smart idea, but he doesn’t insist on going with him the way that Bruce does.  They leave the team in Rhodey’s very capable hands, taking the private jet and knowing that their just a sling ring away from being where they’re needed; if they’re needed.  

The new house on the coast of Malibu is just as ostentatious as the old one, but bigger and a bit more sturdy.  Tony tells Bruce that he turned the property into a safehouse, of sorts, in case he ever needed it.  In case they ever needed it.  

There’s a landing pad on the roof, that Tony sent the coordinates of with his last song about California Stars by some band that died in the 90s.  

They’re there for two weeks when Tony is woken from a dead sleep by blaring alerts and FRIDAY telling him that there is a legitimate unidentified flying object landing on his roof.  He throws his sheets aside and rubs the sleep from his eyes on the way up to the helipad, only to be blinded the second he steps out the door, air whipping around and tugging at his already mussed hair and clothes.  

He holds up a hand to block the glare, squinting between his fingers as he catches the sleek lines of orange and blue, fear present somewhere at the back of his head but mouth stretching into a wide smile.  The hiss of the hydraulics has him practically bouncing onto his toes, something giddy unfurling in his chest as a ramp lowers.  For a moment, he thinks he should’ve brought a boom box and held it over his head like Cusac.  

Maybe next time.

He isn’t sure what, exactly, he’s expecting-- though, dimly, he realizes he _is_ expecting something, hopeful of something, and isn’t that a kick in the gut-- but when a very tall, very strawberry blonde man comes bounding down the ramp, he’s more than a little dumbstruck.  Though, considering Thor is technically an alien, he knows he shouldn’t be.  

But the music that pours out after the man snaps him back into focus, and Tony chokes on a laugh as he recognizes _Take On Me_ by a-ha.  When the guy falters at the end of the ramp, eyes a little wide and smile a little wider, Tony takes it upon himself to make first introductions.  

“Hey, there, space geek.” Tony greets with a smile, stepping forward and offering out a hand.  “I can definitely say this is the best close encounter of the first kind that I’ve ever heard of.”

Any wariness vanishes, and the man offers his hand in return.  “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting from a musical penpal, but I figured you had good taste, so it would be worth the risk.”

“I assure you, the feeling is mutual.” Tony says.  

* * *

Peter Quill, or as he insists _Star-Lord_ , is not alone upon arrival.  When he and Tony are done with their own introductions, a few quips passed between them, Peter insists that Tony meet the rest of his motley crew just as Tony insists they come inside and get themselves acquainted.  

It is refreshing to not be instantly recognized for who he is.  Instead, the crew of the blue and orange ship only know him as the guy that’s been broadcasting Terran jams all throughout the galaxy.  The rest of the crew is, naturally, a bit of a shock to Tony’s-- and Bruce’s, when he joins them in the living room overlooking the Pacific-- system.  It’s much more what he expected, though he’s still trying to wrap his brain around the talking tree.

And the talking raccoon.

And the very intimidating looking woman and man with skins the colors of jelly bellies.

When they all settle in, some of Quill’s group looking a little less wary by each passing second, Tony offers to order up some food for delivery and Peter jumps on the chance to have pizza.  It’s then that Tony realizes Peter isn’t necessarily an alien; just returning home after a very long trip.

They talk for a long time, the Guardians telling Bruce and Tony their story and how, exactly, they came to carry that name, as well as not-so-subtly letting them know that they have other crew members back up in the deep dark space above that would come looking if anything were to happen to them.  Tony just smiles and offers them their choice of the guest rooms.

* * *

He has Stephen bring Thor over the next day, to sit and talk with the Guardians about a few things that include the intergalactic immunity clauses of the Accords that he urges them to sign so that they might enjoy an extended stay on earth rather than a sadly brief one.  

When that’s said and done, it’s Peter that turns to Tony over a heaping pile of bacon, eyes bright.  “So, how long can we stay?”

“As long as you’d like,” Tony shrugs.  “This house is mostly empty most of the time, anyway.”

“What’s the catch?” Gamora asks shrewdly.

Tony grins.  “I’d like a chance to check out whatever tech you brought with you.”

Instantly, Rocket perks.  “I knew y’were a gear jockey the second Quill told us you’d sent a reply, didn’t I, Groot?”

“I am Groot.”

“Shuddap, I did.   _After_ I said he was a loser.”

Tony laughs.

* * *

He isn’t exactly sure how he decides to stay with the Guardians at the mansion in Malibu when Bruce decides to return to the Compound, but he knows that he does.  Quill says he’s got some personal business somewhere in the mid-west, and Tony offers up his resources but figures Peter can figure his own way through his little coming-of-age adventure.  Figures he and his friends would rather take it on their own.  

Rocket and Groot stay behind with Tony, tinkering around with him down in the basement until they return four days later.  Tony’s more than grateful that they’re back because trying to keep Rocket from taking apart everything that he owns has been bad on his already terrible heart.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Tony asks Peter.

Peter gives an aborted bob of his head, mouth twisted in a way that makes Tony ache somewhere in his chest, and he watches as Peter tries to keep his hands busy with some of the tools laid out over the work table.  The others have already retreated into their respective rooms, but Peter is lingering.  Restless.  

Tony knows that feeling well.

“Didn’t find anything good, did you?” Tony offers up a small smile that Peter doesn’t quite return.

He clears his throat, shakes his head, and Tony watches as his jaw works.  “Just, uh… Dunno why, but I kinda thought nothing would change.”

“Thirty years in space is a long time.”

“Yeah,” Peter croaks.

For a long second, Tony is at a loss as to what to do.  He’s never been great with emotions, his own, or anyone else’s.  But he doesn’t like the distance that grows in Peter’s usually bright, expressive eyes.  

Pushing to his feet, Tony pads over and places a tentative hand on his shoulder, smile tight but earnest.  Peter tries again, and fails again, to return it.

“You know what helps?” Tony asks, catching Peter’s wrist and pulling him away from the table.  

“What?”

“Well, first answer is always drinking.” Tony winks.  “But considering I have to start taking better care of my liver, the second answer is music.  FRIDAY?”

The music floats in, the jazzy upbeat tune already bringing a small smile to Peter’s mouth.  It takes only a second longer before Peter is laughing and swaying with the beat, right next to Tony, and guffawing out a loud sound when Tony uses his loose grip to push Peter into a lazy spin.  

Tony’s already singing along.  He knows it’s ridiculous.  It’s mid-July.

“ _Do you remember,”_ he tosses his head back laughing when Peter retaliates, taking both Tony’s hands in his and spinning him around and around and around.  “ _Dancing in September?  Golden dreams and shiny days_.”

* * *

“You should come with us,” Peter says as they’re loading up into the Milano.  

It’s been a month and Tony is sad to see them go.  It’s been a long time since he felt so content, so guiltless, in people’s company.  They’re just like him, a bunch of fuck-ups, but together they’re something more.  Something better.

He almost wishes he could take them up on the offer.

“Can’t,” Tony shrugs.  “Got a world to keep safe.  And you’ve got a galaxy to look after.”

Okay, he definitely wishes he could take them up on the offer.  

“Maybe next time?” he asks.

Peter beams.  “Definitely next time.”

As he’s walking up the ramp, music comes streaming out of the Milano.  Tony snorts, shaking his head and crossing his arms over his chest as Peter thrusts a fist into the air, Simple Minds’ _Don’t You Forget About Me_ pouring around him.  

* * *

It’s two weeks later, back at the Compound, that Tony gets the alert.  

He pulls it up, smiling at the sight of sound waves, and has FRIDAY start the track.  He leans back in his seat, head tipped back and eyes closed, and lets the dream of stars steal the night away.

Definitely next time.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: okay! so i know your a total nerd and i love love LOVE that little "Jokes" fic you've got goin on AO3, but I was wondering if you could do an ironlord/starquill fic??? I dunno if you could fit it into that one, but i'd love something with them-- comic or mcu universe or some combination??? pretty please?


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